Sitting Shiva and Swimming in Cenotes

L-R: author's mother, sister, father, author. Mankayane, Swaziland, 1977

Ek Balam Cenote, Yucatan, August 2016

 

Swimming with the islas at Ek Balam Cenote, August 2016, Yucatan.

Opening to the sky, Ek Balam Cenote, Yucatan, August 2016

Sitting Shiva and Swimming in Cenotes

Last week, my son and I sat shiva with friends.  Not being Jewish, and being an inherent researcher I read up first since I was only passingly familiar with the practice.  What most struck me most was the emphasis – the insistence - on taking time to grieve and to accept the help and comfort of one’s community.  

I was raised to offer and give help when family, friends, and neighbours are, for example, ill or grieving or (best!) welcoming new little ones.  I was taught the importance of attending important life events and providing support whenever I saw a need, and it’s a deep part of my identity. 

Take care.  Show up.  Look for a way to help.  Write a note.  Place a call.  Bake a casserole.  Send flowers.  Make a donation.  Be available.  Give space.  Pay attention. Listen.  Listen.  Listen. 

Yes, listen.  And while listening to those around you, also listen to yourself.  Allow yourself space and time to feel, to grieve, to let feelings and thoughts flow in a safe space to explore them as fully as you can.  Allow others to express their care, and when they offer, tell them what you need.  

My father passed away last spring, and I consciously worked on finding safe spaces and times to let myself process what I was feeling, and what this immense loss meant to myself, our family, our community.  When in the summer we traveled to Mexico, I took the opportunity of getting to swim in cenotes to reflect. 

The Yucatan Peninsula is this giant slab of limestone thrust out of the seabed millennia ago.  The soil is thin, and rain filters down through the porous stone feeding a giant underground network of freshwater rivers, sometimes spilling out into caverns with openings above.  

Sacred to the ancient Maya, explored, mapped, and investigated by archaeologists, local swimming holes and escape from the oppressive summer heat, cenotes are all of this and more.  While most of them are hidden from common view and either difficult or impossible to access from the surface, many cenotes are open and available to everyone. 

And so there I was, scrawling down the slick limestone steps with my family as we visited several cenotes, duly warned by hand-painted signs: “Friend Visitor: Walk Carefully” and “Precautions Tourist Take Care of Your Self” and “If You Can’t Swim Don’t Get in the Water”.  All fair and relevant points.

Once at the water’s surface, it was usually a delicate and completely ungraceful scramble over sharp ledges (aided and encouraged by abuelos and abuelas) and then plunging into deep, cold, and dense water.  

I swam under the water, embracing the coldness (I was getting to swim in a cenote!).  I floated on my back, looking up through the opening to the sky above.  

I thought about life, death, birth, rebirth, memories, dreams, past, present, future, the underworld, earth, and heavens: these big impossible things.  I felt the islas (cave-dwelling fish) nibble my feet.  I watched bats spiral down through the sunlight.  I heard my kids, and everyone else in the cenote, shout and laugh and play. 

I let myself feel.  And think.  And ponder.  And breathe, just breathe.  And look, and listen.  And then I would dive back down, and swim back to the ledge, and let the abuelos help me back out.